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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26505973">blood of my blood</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azdaema/pseuds/Azdaema'>Azdaema</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Beautiful Golden Fools, Blood Loss, Brother/Sister Incest, F/M, Mad Science, POV Cersei Lannister, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Public service announcement: never pull out an arrow by the shaft, Surgery, Twincest</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:28:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,679</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26505973</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azdaema/pseuds/Azdaema</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Blood brings life and life cannot exist without blood. With Jaime's life on the line, Cersei must make a drastic decision. [Summary by my beta]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cersei Lannister &amp; Qyburn, Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>blood of my blood</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Finishing his examination, Qyburn declared, “I can save him, more like that not.”</p><p>Cersei took a sharp breath, half crumpling under the relief.</p><p>“But I will need the blood of a living man.”</p><p>She raised one eyebrow. “Explain.”</p><p>“To save him, I will have to operate. The body cannot heal around arrowheads; they must be removed. Your brother has already lost a great deal of blood, and during the operation he will bleed more. He will die of blood loss unless some blood can be regained. I will have to connect his veins to the veins of another.”</p><p>“Can such a thing be done?”</p><p>“Such a thing has been done at the Citadel; one dog given the blood of another. The practice was prohibited after a man was given a sheep’s blood and died.” Qyburn tutted. “<em>Of course</em> he died. The blood of a sheep will not serve for a man, just as a kitten will vomit if given the milk of a cow. It must be the same blood, the blood of another man.”</p><p>“Have <em>you</em> done such a thing before?”</p><p>“Not on the living, no,” he said carefully, “though I believe I can.” He turned to her and spread his hands. “It is your choice, Your Grace. But if I am to save him, this is what must be done. What do you command?”</p><p>“He will still be himself?” Part of her told her she was a fool for asking. He was already changed; already no longer <em>her</em> Jaime. He had returned from the dungeons of Riverrun not quite himself. And yet still, the thought of him becoming like Ser Strong was more than her heart could bear.</p><p>“Of course,” Qyburn assured her. “He is not dead yet, only grievously injured and unconscious.”</p><p>“Then do it.”</p><p>“I will need a second man, then. Shall I have a prisoner brought from the dungeons?”</p><p>“No. The blood will be mine.”</p><p>“Your Grace, that is not necessary.”</p><p>“You will not put the blood of a base criminal into my brother. He is my twin. Our blood is the same, I would stake my life on it—I would stake <em>his</em> life on it. Another’s blood will make him sick.” <em>The idea of it will make me sick, at any rate.</em></p><p>“It will not make him sick. Any woman can serve as a child’s wetnurse; it matters not.”</p><p>“Our mother nursed us herself,” she replied curtly, “and I nursed my own babes.” Wetnurses were for the children of weak women, the orphaned, and the unloved.</p><p>“Yes, Your Grace, but—”</p><p>She held up a hand. “He is my <em>twin</em>,” she repeated, as if the maester had failed to grasp this point. “Give him my blood. No one else’s.”</p><p>He fell silent, then inclined his head. “Very well.”</p><p>Qyburn brought out two books, opening them respectively to the account of Maester Richard’s successful experiment with dogs, and Maester Denys’s failed experiment with a man and a sheep.</p><p>“Maester Denys conducted his work a hundred and fifty years ago,” Qyburn said, half to the queen and half to himself. “<em>A hundred and fifty years</em> this practice has been banned! All because <em>one man</em> was fool enough to think a sheep’s blood was no different than ours, and because no one at the Citadel had the courage to test such a thing between men and disprove it!” He shook his head in disgust, then lapsed into quiet concentration, eyes skimming down the page.</p><p>“How much blood will you take?”</p><p>“In truth, Your Grace, I do not know. Blood cannot be put in a bowl and measured, for it will clot, as that is the nature of exposed blood. We will give him as much as you can spare, before you start to feel faint.”</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>“You’ll need to lie alongside your brother,” Qyburn began clearing objects off a table. “I’ll need you to remove your corset, and you will want a pillow—it may take a while.”</p><p>By the time she returned with a pillow, clad only in her shift, two tables had been cleared off and pushed together, and her brother’s unconscious body was resting on one.</p><p>Without the gold of his hair and the scarlet of his blood, his body looked as pale and gray as his shift. Her protector, laid out for the Stranger’s taking, unless he was driven back with blood and devotion.</p><p>Qyburn was preparing a tray of chirurgeon’s tools, using tongs to remove them one by one from a steaming vat and placing them on a linen cloth.</p><p>“When you hand a boy his first bow, tell him, ‘Never pull an arrow out!’ Every day that he practices shooting, tell him, ‘Never pull an arrow out!’ Tell him until he’s sick to death of hearing it! Tell him until he threatens to shoot you if you say it one more time! Because evidently some young fools make it to the battlefield without understanding this properly. Removing an arrow with the shaft still attached is nothing! But with the shaft missing…” He tutted disapprovingly.</p><p>Qyburn finished preparing his tray of tools and approached the table. Looking at the scalpels and forceps, Cersei’s mouth went dry. Far be it from her to disparage her maester’s methods—she kept him specifically for this reason—but all the same, it was <em>different</em>, knowing these instruments were to be used on Jaime.</p><p>“Tell me what you mean to do before you do it,” Cersei instructed.</p><p>Qyburn did. “Sit on the table. Good. Now, this is a cannula,” he explained, holding up the object, “made from a goose feather. I will use it to connect your veins.”</p><p>“Where?”</p><p>The maester took hold of her arm and prodded about for a moment. “Here,” he proclaimed, squeezing a spot on her forearm with his thumb. Then he moved to examine Jaime, and his eyebrows raised slightly. “Ah, good, it’s a prominent vein on him as well,” he declared.</p><p>The queen scoffed at his surprise—<em>of course</em> their veins mirrored one another, what had he expected?</p><p>“Lie back, now, and stretch your arm out.” Qyburn passed her the pillow to tuck under her head. “Shift up slightly, so your elbow aligns with his. There, good. Now I’m going to connect your veins.”</p><p>It hurt going in, but once in place, the cannula stung more than it hurt. Blood spilled out the far end of the tube before the maester managed to get it placed in Jaime’s arm.</p><p>Qyburn adjusted their arms, and waited a moment, to make sure the blood was flowing between them before he drew back. “It is my belief that women can tolerate blood loss better than men, though I have not tested this. When you begin to feel faint—<em>at all</em>—” he added sternly, “you must tell me at once.”</p><p>“I will,” she assured the maester, as she closed her eyes.</p><p>She ought to tell Qyburn, Cersei knew. If this failed to save Jaime, he would have two dead patients rather than one. If she died, Qyburn ought to know that it was because the twins’ lives were inextricably linked, lest he wrongfully attribute her death to the procedure, and conclude that giving one’s blood to another was deadly for the giver.</p><p>And yet, it felt too sacred to speak to an outsider. So she said nothing.</p><p>Trying to keep her arm still, Cersei twisted her hand at the wrist, reaching. For an instant she suddenly feared she would find only emptiness at the end of Jaime’s arm, but no—this was his other side, and her warm fingers closed around his chilled, listless ones.</p><p>“Don’t move your arm,” Qyburn chided mildly, reaching to adjust the cannula again.</p><p>The queen scoffed under her breath, but squeezed Jaime’s fingers in hers and did not move any part of her arm again.</p><p>“I will start the procedure now,” Qyburn said. Cersei opened her eyes, having nearly forgotten about that part. The maester stood over her twin’s body, scalpel in one hand. “First, I will make as many incisions as I must to locate the arrowhead. Once I have found it, I will dislodge the arrow from the bone, and extract it.”</p><p>She closed her eyes again, wincing in sympathy. “Don’t tell me what you’re doing to him. Only tell me when you’re about to do something to me.”</p><p>“Of course, Your Grace,” he said demurely, and then fell silent.</p><p>She tried not to listen as he set about working. She focused on Jaime’s fingers, the hard table under her back, her toes—anything but her arm, and what was being done to her brother.</p><p>Cersei thought of the old frog, who had also demanded her blood. <em>There is magic in blood,</em> she told herself. <em>This </em>will<em> work.</em> She thought of her babes, passed to her arms for the first time, newborn and sticky with her blood. <em>Blood is of the living.</em></p><p>She slid her thumb upwards, carefully probing at Jaime’s wrist. She had seen Qyburn do this during this examination. How had he done it? Where was the spot?</p><p>There. There. She pressed her thumb against his wrist and felt his pulse, faint but stable, the same one she’d heard a thousand times before, resting her head against his chest. His heart was still beating, pumping her blood, binding them anew.</p><p>He had lost something of himself with his hand. Now, having lost her hair, perhaps she understood it better. It did something to you, being cut away. She thought fleetingly of Tyrion’s nose, and Myrcella’s ear. At this rate, Qyburn could build a new Lannister from all their missing parts.</p><p><em>This will work,</em> Cersei told herself again. If losing part of your body was the ill, having part of your body given back to you was the cure. Having her blood inside him would make him whole again—having him inside her always did.</p><p>
  <em>It works, it always works, I swear it. Blood will run in your veins again, and our hair will grow back. You will be scarlet and golden again, and mine.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The Red Cross for your "bled for the throne" campaign basically guilted me into finally writing this. The idea was kicking around my head for like two years before. (I tried to pawn it off on Fran <a href="/comments/247840400">once</a>. 😆)</p><p>I originally conceived of the "blood transfusion kink" fic as a modern AU, but then I realized it could be a chance for Qyburn to flex his sketchy science skills. Now any inaccuracies can be blamed on Qyburn not yet having figured everything out! The history of blood transfusions that he regales is basically historical, at least according to google—Richard Lower, Jean-Baptiste Denys, and the 150 year ban. In order to advance science, I guess sometimes you need a sketchy-ass physician to come along and do the creepy banned thing.</p><p><b>Oct 13 update:</b> I went to the blood-donation appointment I scheduled and while writing this fic! XD the blood donation itself went fine, but it didn't awaken my muse or grant me any great poetic insights to re-write this, like I'd hoped it might.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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